


Birth of a Revenant

by wynyard



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Gen, Honnleath, Orlesian Invasion, Violence, mentions of torture, prisoner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23447122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynyard/pseuds/wynyard
Summary: My take on how a revenant is born.Happens during and after the Second Orlesian invasion.TW: torture."A revenant is a form of undead that is created when a powerful demon, usually of desire or pride, possesses a warrior's corpse."





	Birth of a Revenant

Honnleath is not a place where a farmer would feel safe, not with the merchants constantly trading, and certainly not from the dangers brought by the iron exporting business. When the blacksmith gets his paycheck at full moon, a bandit group emerges out of their caves to get their own share. Guards from Redcliffe are hardly concerned, but they sometimes spare a few men or two to Honnleath’s way when things get too hot. Unfortunately, most of the time they are either too late, or worse, never make it on the way. 

This Orlesian invasion business though, political status quo if Ryon cared to define, is something else. Born in Honnleath, Ryon took off to Redcliffe village when it all begin. He was eager to fight and protect as many people as he could with a sense of responsibility coming from his gifted battle skills. He had been training all his life till the age of twenty-two to join the Knights of Redcliffe. No one ever doubted his skills, as he alone killed at least twenty Orlesians in this battle before things took a turn for the worse.

Halfway through a gate attack, he was fatally wounded by a magic wielder that left his body half-burnt for the rest of his life. He was taken prisoner by a Commander of a high-rank,  _ one of a kind _ , to say the least, -as this commander saw his prisoners as mere experiment objects- and thrown into jail to stay there and get tortured through the last leg of the invasion.

Ryon remembers all the days, _years_ passed by while the solitude slowly but surely drove him towards madness, making him forget anything else but rage and fury. He scraped his nails on his own skin to draw blood; the stinging pain a reminder that he was still alive, _still_ _there_ and not in the abyss of the after-world.

One night, one, dark and cold night, he was greeted with  the sound of reason, of promises, of honours he had missed. “ _ You are more than this _ ,” the voice had said, “ _ You will laugh again soon _ ,” i t had promised. Even though he was shackled, and still wore the scars of it on his wrists, he managed to reach out and  _ touch _ the voice. Maybe an illusion, maybe real. He couldn’t be sure.

He remembers the face of the Commander as he looked upon him that morning, who then said, “Temptation will be your end.”  It had sounded like another mad drivel from the same theater, and how he hadn’t even given it a second thought before gathering as much saliva as he can in his dry mouth and spitting it with all his strength to the armoured feet of his jailer. The Commander had given a choked sound, his swirling eyes bright red with insanity and disdain. He did nothing but walked off to the exit one last time. He never came back, but the torturers did, every other night until the red moon.

When the battle was over, he was discovered by the last survivors of Redcliffe and taken to the city’s clinic for his “injuries”, long-infected with worms and blighted whatnot. To many, it was a miracle he even had survived.

He vividly remembers the thoughts that passed through his head along the path to the clinic, the state of his surroundings and the constant promises of “there’s no turning back”. A curse or a blessing. An insult or a way out.

He had seen the last state of the commander in his dreams. Although Ryon doesn’t remember whether he had seen his corpse for real, or his imagination was just perfectly aligned with the reality. What was left of him was mutilated, one eye missing from its skewered socket, his body resembling nothing but a meat sack. Back then, he didn’t know what he would do in the future now that he had no one to avenge it upon, blame it all on, so he had tried to sign up for the guard of Redcliffe. It wasn’t long before he got an answer from them, saying they humbly couldn’t accept an applicant with four fingers missing, damaged eyesight and damaged everything else but they had also added,  _ humbly _ , that they would honour his name on the “Protectors of Ferelden”. Horseshit, to someone who’s seen more than half of the rookies on that same guard team.

This hadn’t stopped him from trying though, as he came back to his birthplace, he had no one else left, barely anyone had recognised his burnt face and he barely recognized any of them through the mist in his eyes, so he created a self-proclaimed guard team in Honnleath. It wasn’t long before it failed though, because no one else fought as bravely, or  _ barbarically _ , as he did. He thought going to the cavern of dozens of bandits was a suitable job for a guard team of eigh t self-taught farmers. Three of them simply refused to go, and the rest was murdered along the cavern. He, though, had killed all of the bandits, no prisoners, all missing something when he was done by  the sunrise. He doesn’t remember how it happened though, as he awoke by the lake, naked and pleased.

When he returned to the village, people were waiting for him with torches, ablaze with fear and wrath of the chant on their lips. “You’re an abomination!” His house was burning,  _ he  _ was burning but he couldn’t hear anything. No screams of the angry mob in front of him, no crackle of fire, no wind. All he heard was, “Finally.”

The last thing he had remembered of his mortal body moving through the Veil was the burning of his skin, every sense of him alive and scorching. All of it was condemnation, a means to an end, he had realised.

The time would come when he would be called to walk the earth, to kill what has disturbed him, to make them flee in fear from the strength he held proudly and have never been praised for.

But for now, he will be waiting.

* * *

**Upon his vial wrote;**

_ Through the path of anger you have walked, and so you will be hounded. _

_ We condemn you to the darkness you have created, bound you by your true name. _

_ Ryon Hanal, revenant and savage of a once innocent place. _

_ Though no peace you will find in the void, _

_ Andraste hold you, demon, and bind your rage for eternity. _

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank Tealeaf1801 on reddit for being amazing and betaing this. I'm very grateful.  
> Comments and criticism more than welcome!  
> Binding words inspired from "Codex entry: The Black Vials".


End file.
